Pregnancy sick leave in Ireland: sick pay, medical visits and safety leave

Statutory Sick Pay: five days, capped

Since 1 January 2024 you have a right to 5 days' sick pay a year, increased from 3 days in 2023. Sick pay is paid by your employer at 70% of your normal pay up to a maximum of €110 a day. The rules are set out in the Sick Leave Act 2022.

The sick pay year is the calendar year, running from 1 January to 31 December. Both full-time and part-time employees can take 5 days' paid sick leave, and if you have more than one employer you can get 5 days from each, provided you meet the service test with each.

Who qualifies

To qualify you must be an employee, have worked for your employer for at least 13 continuous weeks before you are sick, and be certified by a medical practitioner as unable to work. You can get sick pay if you are on probation, an intern, an apprentice or an agency worker.

If you leave a job and return to the same employer within 26 weeks, the gap does not count against the 13-week requirement; your service is treated as continuous.

Certification and waiting days

You must be certified by a medical practitioner as unable to work, and you should be certified from day 1 of your sick leave. Crucially, you have a right to Statutory Sick Pay from the first day you are off sick, and your employer cannot apply waiting days.

Your employer can operate a more generous scheme, but cannot give you less than the statutory amount.

Do not spend sick days on scans

This is the most valuable thing on this page. While you are pregnant, you can take time off for medical visits connected with the pregnancy, and you can take as much time off as you need for these visits, including the travelling time to and from the appointment as well as the appointment itself.

You have the right to be paid while keeping these medical appointments, both before and after the birth, and the right continues for medical visits for up to 14 weeks after the birth.

The conditions are modest: give your employer a note from your doctor confirming the pregnancy, and give 2 weeks' notice of your medical visits. Show your appointment card if your employer asks after the first appointment.

Antenatal classes

You can take paid time off work to attend antenatal classes, and you are entitled to attend one set of antenatal classes, except for the last 3 classes of the set. Fathers can take paid time off to attend the last 2 antenatal classes immediately before the birth.

Health and safety leave

Your employer should carry out separate risk assessments when you are pregnant, have recently given birth, or are breastfeeding, and should either remove any risks or move you away from them. If neither is possible they should give you health and safety leave, which for a pregnant employee may continue until maternity leave begins. The right sits in section 18 of the Maternity Protection Act 1994.

Your employer pays your normal wages for the first 21 days, that is 3 weeks, of health and safety leave. After that the Department of Social Protection pays Health and Safety Benefit, if you meet the PRSI conditions.

Health and Safety Benefit rates for 2026

The weekly personal rate depends on your earnings: €254 where earnings are €300 or more, €198.90 for €220 to €299.99, €163.70 for €150 to €219.99, and €114.00 for less than €150. The qualified adult rate is €168.60 at the top band and €109.20 at the others. These are the 2026 rates.

To qualify you must be pregnant or have recently given birth, be awarded health and safety leave by your employer, and satisfy PRSI conditions, one of which is at least 13 weeks of PRSI paid in the 12 months immediately before your baby is due. For claims made in 2026, the relevant tax year is 2024.

Night workers are covered specifically. A night worker works at least 3 hours of a normal shift between 11pm and 6am, or at least 25% of monthly hours in that window. If you have given birth in the last 14 weeks and do night work, you can qualify; if you are breastfeeding, the benefit applies in the first 26 weeks after the birth.

During health and safety leave you are still considered to be in employment, so you continue to accumulate annual leave, though you are not entitled to payment for public holidays that fall during it.

What we could not pin down

Whether your employer's own sick pay scheme beats the statutory five days is contractual, and sectoral schemes exist in some industries. Check your contract. If you are refused Statutory Sick Pay or penalised for taking it, Citizens Information sets out the complaint route through the Workplace Relations Commission.

If your employer will not pay

Statutory Sick Pay is a legal entitlement, not a discretionary benefit, and there is a route if it is refused. Citizens Information sets out what to do if you are having problems getting sick pay, and separately what to do if you are penalised for taking it. Complaints go to the Workplace Relations Commission.

There is a narrow employer exemption: an employer in financial difficulty can apply to be exempted from paying sick pay, but that is a formal process rather than something an employer can simply assert.

Sectoral and contractual schemes

If your employer already has a sick pay scheme that is more favourable than the statutory five days, that scheme applies instead. Sectoral sick pay schemes exist in some industries. Check your contract or collective agreement, because the statutory scheme is a floor and not a ceiling.

How sick pay interacts with Illness Benefit

Statutory Sick Pay and Illness Benefit from the Department of Social Protection are different payments with different rules, and taking one affects the other. If your absence is likely to run beyond the five statutory days, ask about Illness Benefit early rather than after the employer payments stop, because claims take time.